A refrigerator is a home appliance that can keep objects such as food in a storage compartment provided in a cabinet at a low temperature. The storage compartment may be surrounded by an insulation wall such that the internal temperature of the storage compartment is maintained at a temperature lower than an external temperature.
The storage compartment may be referred to as a refrigerating compartment or a freezing compartment according to the temperature range of the storage compartment.
A user may open and close the storage compartment using a door. The user opens the door to put objects into the storage compartment or take objects out of the storage compartment. In some examples, the door is rotatably provided on the cabinet and a gasket is provided between the door and the cabinet.
In some cases, in a state of closing the door, the gasket is closely adhered between the door and the cabinet to prevent leakage of cool air from the storage compartment. As adhesion force of the gasket increases, the effect of preventing leakage of cool air may increase.
In order to increase adhesion force of the gasket, the gasket may be formed of, for example, a rubber magnet or a magnet may be provided in the gasket. However, if adhesion force of the gasket increases, a large force may be required to open the door.
Recently, refrigerators having an auto closing function have been provided. For example, an auto closing function refers to a function for automatically closing the door of the refrigerator using adhesion force and magnetic force of the gasket and elastic force of a spring when the door of the refrigerator is slightly opened.
In some examples, the auto closing function may refer to a function for preventing the door of the refrigerator from being automatically opened even when the refrigerator is slightly tilted forward.
In some cases, recent refrigerators may require a large force to open a door as compared to refrigerators of the related art, because a user may need to pull the door with force larger than adhesion force and magnetic force of a gasket and elastic force of a spring.
Recently, a door opening device for automatically opening a door has been proposed.
In some examples, the refrigerator may include a door and a door opening device mounted in the door.
The door opening device may be provided in a cap decoration part of the door of the refrigerating compartment. In this case, it may be difficult to increase the front-and-rear length of the door opening device to be greater than the front-and-rear length (thickness) of the door.
The door opening device may include a rack which can be withdrawn from and inserted into the door by driving a motor.
Driving power of the motor is delivered to the rack through a power delivery device. In some cases, the rack is withdrawn when the motor is driven in one direction and the rack is inserted when the motor is driven in the other direction.
In some examples, the power delivery device may include a plurality of gears and rotation power of the motor may be delivered to the rack by rotating the plurality of gears. In some cases, the rack includes a rack body and a rack gear formed in the rack body. Driving power of the motor is delivered to the rack through engagement between the gears and the rack gear.
In some examples, the rack pushes a cabinet in a process of withdrawing the rack, thereby opening the door.
In this case, the door may be automatically opened in a state in which a user does not apply pulling force to the door.
The opening angle of the door may change according to the withdrawal distance of the rack. For example, the rack may have a curved shape, and the door may be automatically opened by about 25 degrees.
In some examples, the door is automatically opened for a user to take food out of the storage compartment or to put food into the storage compartment without manually opening the door. Accordingly, the door may be opened to provide a space sufficient for the user to access the storage compartment.
However, when the door is opened by only about 25 degrees, the user may not satisfactorily use the refrigerator.
For example, when the door is automatically opened by about 25 degrees, the user may further open the door using the body or foot thereof while the user may hold objects in both hands. In this case, an unsanitary problem may occur and automatically opening the door may cause an inconvenience for the user.
In some cases, it may be difficult to increase the withdrawal distance of the rack, because the length of the rack is limited by the thickness of the door. For example, there is a limitation in increase in the length of the rack due to restriction in the internal space of the door of the refrigerator. Therefore, there is a limitation in increase in the protrusion length of the rack.